The present invention generally relates to frequency synthesis, and particularly relates to PLL-based frequency synthesis.
Radio frequency (RF) communications equipment, such as mobile terminals within a wireless communication system, use precise timing or frequency reference signals to receive and transmit signals. Often, such a reference signal is used to derive additional signals, possibly of higher or lower frequency, but with the stability and accuracy inherent in the reference signal. This frequent need to slave the frequency or timing of one signal to another, or to monitor the phase or frequency difference between two signals, gives rise to specialized circuits, such as the phase-locked loop (PLL).
A general PLL configuration has a controllable oscillator generating an output signal, a detector generating an error signal based on the phase or frequency difference between a feedback signal derived from the output signal and an input reference signal. The PLL generally includes some type of control circuit to adjust the oscillator based on the error signal generated by the detector. In this manner, the oscillator's output signal may be “locked” to the input reference signal. By setting frequency dividing ratios between the reference and the feedback signals, the output signal may be made to have a higher or lower frequency than the input signal. A mobile terminal might generate a stable reference signal with a precisely fixed frequency, and then use a PLL-based frequency synthesizer to generate higher frequency signals used in transmit signal modulation and down conversion of received signals.
Although PLL circuits vary widely in their implementation, the detector generally provides one or more output signals that, in general, are driven by the phase or frequency difference between two periodic input signals. Often, these two input signals represent a reference clock signal and an adjustable clock signal that is locked to the reference clock signal by operation of the PLL. When the detector's output signal(s) are generated as a function of the phase difference between the two input signals, the output signals accurately reflect the phase difference between the two input signals only when that difference is within a defined range. Generally, phase detectors used within PLL circuits cannot provide linear detection when the phase difference between two signals is greater than ±2π radians.